LOS ANGELES — When her phone rang one day in 1963, Alice Davis was working as a seamstress on
bras and girdles in the downtown garment district.

Walt Disney, the caller said, wanted to see her.

When she reached his office, the theme-park pioneer asked Davis to design costumes for a new
ride he was planning for the 1964 New York World’s Fair.

The attraction, he promised her, would give joy “to every child, from 1 to 100.”

“I could hardly wait to get there for the first day,” recalled Davis, 85.

Fifty years later, It’s a Small World remains one of the most popular Disneyland rides, having
ferried 290 million visitors — an average of 111,000 a week — for a half-century.

Small World’s technology is outdated, and some say it perpetuates broad stereotypes, with Arab
dolls flying on magic carpets and Mexicans wearing sombreros. Plus, the famous theme song is so
annoying that a recent online survey ranked it the world’s worst ear worm, beating
Gangnam Style and
Who Let the Dogs Out?

But at a time when aging theme-park attractions are routinely scrapped — replaced by expensive,
high-tech rides tied to big-budget movies — Small World is marking another milestone: It’s getting
its own movie.

Industry experts and theme-park visitors say the low-tech attraction’s popularity hinges on its
simplicity and sunny message of peace. Plus, the indoor musical boat trip is fully air-conditioned,
the lines usually move fast, and it clocks in at 15 minutes.

The life spans of rides are even shorter in southern California, where high real-estate costs
encourage theme parks to remove aging rides to make room for new attractions. Despicable Me Minion
Mayhem opened in April, for example, at Universal Studios Hollywood, replacing Terminator 2: 3D,
which opened in 1999.

“When a park opens a ride, they have no end-of-service date that has been laid out, because they
don’t know how long they will keep it,” said John Gerner, a theme-park consultant in Virginia who
has worked in the industry for 30 years.

Even state-of-the-art technology doesn’t guarantee success.

“Ultimately, technology is going to fade,” theme-park consultant Phil Hettema said. “What sticks
with people is a story.”

That might explain why Six Flags Magic Mountain in Valencia, Calif., is preparing to dismantle
Colossus, heralded as the world’s tallest and fastest wooden roller coaster when it opened in
1978.

Now, it doesn’t even crack any top-10 lists.

Small World isn’t likely to be replaced anytime soon. Disney officials confirmed that a Small
World movie is in the works — directed by Jon Turteltaub, who is best-known for directing the
National Treasure movies.

Production has yet to begin, but Turteltaub said he would probably rely on computer-generated
imagery to create a “world of laughter, a world of tears.”

The concept for Small World was born more than 50 years ago when officials from the World’s Fair
asked Disney to build an attraction for the UNICEF pavilion.

Disney imagined a flume journey with more than 200 animatronic dolls, dressed in traditional
garb from around the world.

The theme song, written by Richard and Robert Sherman, plays an average of 1,200 times in a
16-hour day. The Sherman brothers originally wrote the song as a slow ballad, intended as a message
of hope after the Cuban missile crisis. But Disney ordered them to speed it up.

The ride opened in 1966 at Disneyland, where it has been among the 10 most-visited attractions.
It has been replicated in Disney parks in Hong Kong; Paris; Tokyo; and near Orlando, Fla.

The original Anaheim version was renovated in 2009 to include modern Disney songs and characters
such as Ariel, Flounder and Nemo in the South Seas section; Woody and Bullseye in North America;
and Tinker Bell flying over Tower Bridge in London.

The overhaul angered some purists but did little to diminish its popularity.

Disneyland art director Kim Irvine, who oversaw the revisions, said she thinks Small World’s
appeal is getting riders to see the world through the eyes of children.

“It’s innocent and pure and tells a story that everyone would love to believe in,” she said.

Davis, the former seamstress who was married to Disney animator Marc Davis, said landing a job
on the Small World ride was a dream come true for a girl who grew up without dolls during the Great
Depression.

She recalls Walt Disney’s first spin through Small World in 1964. Davis prayed that he would
have no complaints.

But he did.

Why, Disney asked her, did she put long pantaloons on the French cancan dancers?